Well, sorry for not posting in so long. I was on a great 8 day winery tour of northern Italy which I will begin to share this week once I get my thoughts and notes together. What I wanted to talk about now is Hell's Kitchen which I watched at a few points during the show although hard to stomach.
I used to be a fan of the show. I liked the competition and it was entertaining. Now I just see it as a show that sheds a bad light on chefs. I do not know how they choose the competitors but they do not seem to be all that sophisticated socially or personally. The thing that drives me the most crazy is how out of shape this batch of contestants appear to be -- more so than any other. I do not like it all that much when watching them chain smoke in their personal time which is not good for their sense of taste and the tongue is perhaps a chefs most important piece of cooking equipment. Or they are drinking. Then there are the fights that erupt between competitors during the various competitions between teams, during service and in their private quarters (of course not so private since filmed). Even more of a puzzle is that they cannot cook the simplest of dishes during service this time around like pork, chicken or a steak for goodness sake. Not good! I wish they would show some of them doing something constructive like having an intelligent conversation about food or heaven forbid, going for a run in the morning or doing some kind of exercise.
So I am now boycotting watching the show but will use it as a teaching tool to show students how NOT TO BEHAVE as hospitality professionals. There is just no place for bad attitudes, limited intelligence, anger management issues, chain smoking, bad hygiene, drinking to handle stress, petty bickering and the rest. Worse still is that the show has Ramsay play the role of a fire breathing asshole chef for the American television viewer when he indeed is not portrayed this way at all in Britain. How sad.
I hope you will do the same. Tell students that the behavior on display on Hell's Kitchen is not cute or entertaining. I will be doing so when teaching the restaurant class again this fall and leading by example!
Monday, June 18, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
Learning Styles Debunked
Perhaps you have heard of Daniel Willingham on your own or in some of my posts over the years. He wrote a great book, "Why Students Don't Like School" and encourage you to read it over the summer if you have not done so already. He argues that there is no evidence for learning styles, so changing up your teaching to accommodate the hypothesized (although widely accepted with little data) styles will not change the learning. I know many want to believe that there is such a thing as learning styles and it can help one be a better teacher because it makes sense but there is no evidence to support it other than folk lore.
Here is an excerpt from an article entitled "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" which discusses learning styles:
Question: What does cognitive science tell us about the existence of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and the best way to teach them?
The idea that people may differ in their ability to learn new material depending on its modality—that is, whether the child hears it, sees it, or touches it—has been tested for over 100 years. And the idea that these differences might prove useful in the classroom has been around for at least 40 years.
What cognitive science has taught us is that children do differ in their abilities with different modalities, but teaching the child in his best modality doesn't affect his educational achievement. What does matter is whether the child is taught in the content's best modality. All students learn more when content drives the choice of modality. In this column, I will describe some of the research on matching modality strength to the modality of instruction. I will also address why the idea of tailoring instruction to a student's best modality is so enduring—despite substantial evidence that it is wrong. You can read the entire article here, which is a good read:
http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2005/willingham.cfm
You can also watch a video where he explains the trouble with learning styles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk
Enjoy!
Am off to Italy and hope me and the iPad will get along so I can post my journey on to the blog. We shall see!
Here is an excerpt from an article entitled "Ask the Cognitive Scientist" which discusses learning styles:
Question: What does cognitive science tell us about the existence of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and the best way to teach them?
The idea that people may differ in their ability to learn new material depending on its modality—that is, whether the child hears it, sees it, or touches it—has been tested for over 100 years. And the idea that these differences might prove useful in the classroom has been around for at least 40 years.
What cognitive science has taught us is that children do differ in their abilities with different modalities, but teaching the child in his best modality doesn't affect his educational achievement. What does matter is whether the child is taught in the content's best modality. All students learn more when content drives the choice of modality. In this column, I will describe some of the research on matching modality strength to the modality of instruction. I will also address why the idea of tailoring instruction to a student's best modality is so enduring—despite substantial evidence that it is wrong. You can read the entire article here, which is a good read:
http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/summer2005/willingham.cfm
You can also watch a video where he explains the trouble with learning styles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk
Enjoy!
Am off to Italy and hope me and the iPad will get along so I can post my journey on to the blog. We shall see!
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